Developing Story: Ministers, How Tinubu Spread The Appointments
By Jonas Happy
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the new Chairman of ECOWAS countries gradually takes the lead in confronting national and sub regional problems.
It is now clear that President Bola Tinubu will operate a 47 – member Federal Executive Council. This is coming in the wake of the President’s delivery of the names of 19 additional nominees to the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.
Recall that he had earlier forwarded the names of 28 ministerial nominees to the Upper House for confirmation as ministers who will serve under his watch.
From facts that are emerging, this is the largest number of ministers ever to be appointed by any administration in the country.
Although portfolios are yet to be attached at a time some Nigerians are canvassing for a reduction in the size of government, there are strong signals that the Presidency may be toying with two possible ideas.
The first line of thought according to some insiders is the idea of further splitting some existing ministries which are considered too large to be effectively supervised by one minister.
Members of Tinubu’s economic team are believed to have given this line of thinking a lot of thought before passing their input to the President who has the final decision to make.
The other option, another school of thought think, is to appoint a number of Ministers of State in some ministries while retaining the bureaucratic system largely the way it is.
When the Ministers eventually take their oath of office, the reason for the president’s choice of a large number of cabinet members would become clearer.
Six geopolitical zones created under the Sani Abacha junta for ease of administrative convenience exist in the country.
They are North East, North Central and North West geopolitical zonez in the North and South East, South South and South West zones in the South.
While the entire Northern region which is larger in size and population has a total of 26 nominees, the Southern region has 21 ministers designate.
A further breakdown of the number of the President’s nominees on a geopolitical zone basis shows that the North West has the highest number of nominees. It has 10 slots out of 47.
The South West geopolitical zone which is President Tinubu’s home base has nine nominees while the North East and North Central zones have eight slots respectively.
Similarly, looking at the distribution of offices which may be closely linked to the voting performance of each of the zones, the South South received seven slots from the President while the South East got five.
Looking at the overall picture, states which got more than one nominee include Ogun in the South West with three slots and Lagos State with two.
Kano, Katsina and Kebbi states in the North West as well as Taraba and Bauchi states in the North East have two slots each.
In the, South South, only Cross River State has two nominees. The East didn’t get any extra slot, may be as a result of the slant of its politics and the score that their voting pattern produced.
Nonetheless, there is no State which was denied a chance to produce a minister as dictated by the Nigerian Constitution as amended.
Nigerians wait to see how the Tinubu administration will assign portfolios, but many here agree that the present crop of ministerial nominees screened first by security agencies appear to be competent.
With Labour calling off its strike after 24 hours, the ministers who would be sworn in immediately after their confirmation by the Senate would be expected to join the effort of the president who is seeking solution to problems confronting the economy and the country.